Everything to Know about Housing in 60 Minutes

Regional Housing Summit Lunch Plenary

Jonathan Knopf
Executive Director for Programs

Why is it so hard to talk about housing?

(As explained by Homer.)

There’s too much going on.

Some people refuse any reality other than their own.

Some people say things you wish you could unhear.

It’s easy to get frustrated!

So what can we do?



📚 Know your facts and history

🔨 Focus on solutions

📣 Rethink how you talk about housing (then think again)

In less than an hour…

  1. Affordable housing 101
  2. The Three S’s of Success
  3. Reframing the picture

What is affordable housing?

One term, many definitions


TECHNICAL

Your home is affordable if you pay no more than 30 percent of your gross income on housing costs.

PROGRAMMATIC

Your home is affordable if it is subsidized by a public program to reduce your housing costs.

HOLISTIC

Your home is affordable if you feel it is safe, secure, healthy, and within your budget.

Housing is a spectrum

Area Median Income

Area Median Income

Instability

Housing Families First (Richmond, Virginia)

Rental market

Hazel Hill Apartments (Section 8)

Wellington Woods (Market affordable)

Townsend Square (LIHTC)

Hanover House (New construction rental)

Homeownership

Randolph Road ($370,000)

Harrison Village (From the $630,000s)

A broken housing market makes things tough for everyone.

How can we fix it?

🏗️ Supply

🏠 Stability

💰 Subsidy

Supply


An abundance of homes for everyone

Supply problems

  • We’ve underbuilt for generations
  • Restrictive zoning makes land more expensive
  • Construction labor never recovered after 2008
  • Interest rate, inflation, and supply chain issues abound

▶️ Half of all renters in the region are cost-burdened

▶️ First-time homebuyers are nearly priced out

Supply solutions


What local governments can do:

  • Use comprehensive plan updates to explore long-term density options
  • Expand accessory dwelling units in residential districts
  • Explore inclusionary zoning
  • Permit by-right multifamily housing in more residential zones

Stability


Keeping homeowners and renters in place

Stability problems

  • Tight rental market doesn’t incentivize property owners to make improvements
  • Pandemic-era rental protections and assistance have expired
  • No longer making significant progress on homelessness
  • Seniors are a significant portion of current and future housing demand

▶️ Proactive intervention needed to avoid significant long-term costs

Stability solutions

⛔ Localities in Virginia have very few powers to regulate rents and tenants’ rights

What local governments can do:

  • Orient zoning and financial resources to make permanent support housing easier
  • Increase housing rehab and critical home repair programs
  • Revitalize manufactured home communities and replace poor quality homes
  • Create a center for first time, low/moderate-income homebuyer readiness

Subsidy


Public investment to fill market gaps

Subsidy problems

  • Long-term shifts in federal policy place increasing responsibilities on states and local communities
  • Only 7% of all the new homes built in the region over the past decade use public assistance to provide below-market rate rents
  • Just a fraction of households eligible and in need of housing assistance actually receive any

▶️ Local governments must get creative to supplement other resources

Subsidy solutions


What local governments can do:

  • Establish local (or regional) housing trust funds
  • Establish a regional housing consortium to pool federal housing resources
  • Explore locally-run public development models

⚠️ New dedicated revenue sources are necessary to make an impact

Montgomery County, MD Housing Production Fund

The Hurston (First HPF project)

This stuff is hard, right?

🏡 Housing is personal

🤝 Housing isn’t partisan (usually)

🧠 Housing breaks people’s brains

Everyone thinks
they’re an expert…

Frames and backfires

What is a FRAME?

Frames are sets of choices about how information is presented. Effective framing requires:

  • Knowing your audience
  • Knowing what to lead with
  • Selecting words that “fit your frame”
  • Choosing what to leave unsaid

How can it BACKFIRE?

A message backfires when it reinforces the audience’s existing biases, rather than changing them…

…even when contradictory evidence is provided.

Common backfires

“Traditional” message

John and Mary need our help. They are trying to overcome addiction and homelessness. They need an affordable home and counseling support.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

They should stop making poor decisions. Don’t ask me to pay for their mistakes.

ZERO-SUM THINKING

I feel bad for them, but it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s not my responsibility to solve their problems.

Four tips for successful reframing

  1. Regional fairness
  1. Focus on systems
  1. Proactive explanations
  1. Pivot to solutions

Direct thinking away from personal decision-making to consequences faced by whole community. Orient benefits to all of us.

Describe the roles and relationships among government, private market, and citizens.

Connect the facts you may take for granted so your audience doesn’t fill in their own blanks with misleading information.

End explanations with clear, actionable remedies to keep focus on how we can fix our problems.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Be prepared for wherever the conversation goes…

💡 Use familiar places, terms, and concepts

👪 Name the players and their roles in the system

📈 Use data as ingredients, not the full dish

🔄 Connect to larger problems that affect everyone

Much more to it:

frameworksinstitute.org/issues/housing

What you should keep in mind today

“Affordable” is just the start of the conversation

Take advantage of increasing attention on housing issues

We’re making more progress than you might think

…but there’s much more to do!

Good luck!

We’re here to help:

  jonathan@housingforwardva.org

  housingforwardva.org
  @housingforwardva
  @housingforwardva
  @housingfwdva

Regional Housing Summit | October 17, 2023